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Solar panels were made in China. The reason that solar panels are so cheap there is that the state has bankrolled these companies to produce them at a massive s
by soperj 2mo ago
Solar panels were made in China. The reason that solar panels are so cheap there is that the state has bankrolled these companies to produce them at a massive scale.
- mullingitover 2mo agoGood for them. They really can’t win: if they don’t modernize they get blamed for high CO2 emissions and used as an excuse for the US to shirk its responsibilities to the Paris Agreements. If they do, and help the rest of the world at the same time, they get accused of dumping. If only everyone else had the guts to follow their lead.
- soperj 2mo agoWasn't accusing them of dumping. I was saying that it wasn't capitalism that fixed this issue.
- vablings 2mo agoI just want to point out that this isn't something that is uncommon in capitalist societies (see CHIPS act) and the price delta is somewhere between 150%-200% more expensive for a western manufactured product which gets heavily diluted over the 25-year curve. I think you misunderstood the point I was making. Solar panels are incredibly cheap and provide a large swathe of power, the problem being that it depresses daytime prices meaning there is significantly less capacity at nighttime causing an increase in pricing, this delta in the form of time delayed arbitrage is the juice to be squeezed for home battery technology, The free energy market is what allowed this to happen and that is a capitalist function The broader point here is that solar is here, it's very very cheap and the raw materials and manufactring processes are actually incredibly simple.